Opening Ceremony

The next day's morning, excitement fills 'Kaiba Land America' as the KC Grand Prix begins.

Mokuba appears on the central podium of the stage and makes the opening speech by explaining the rules: all 16 Duelists will be split in Block A and B respectively. He reminds the public that the winner will have the honor of having a Duel with the winner of the Battle City tournament and "Duel King": Yugi Muto.

The 1st A Block Duel is announced: Joey will be facing "Apdnarg Otum". Joey claims that he'll win and expose his 'true identity', making his friends sigh: isn't it obvious enough?

The 1st B Block Duel is also announced: Leon Wilson will be facing Dr. Richard Goat.

The second set of Duels will be announced after each Block's 1st Duels are over. (Above list is compiled via the information given in the following Episodes.)

Mokuba tells Yugi to climb into the stage and greet the public. Rather nervous, he does so in a rather shy manner.

At that moment, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon jet appears and Kaiba makes his grand entrance using a jet pack, no less. Zigfried Lloyd directs a suspicious glance at him: it's obvious that he's still plotting something.

Kaiba takes the microphone from Mokuba and begins a short speech:

Seto Kaiba: "Comrades! This ain't a festival and it ain't a show! It's a survival game in which Duelists stake their pride! You'll be their witnesses to them: you shall hear their death agonies and just one voice of joy! Chosen Duelists! Right now, my Kaiba Land has become a Colosseum! Glory! Defeat! You'll have to win in order to survive! Show me who'll be the survivor!"

He inwardly wonders where the "rats" hiding at: He won't allow them to ruin as they like this competition.

Each One's Opponents

The Duelists head over to their assigned spaces. However, Joey went off to get a hot dog and didn't listen to the announcement! He and the others run off across the 'Jungle' stage, dodging a bunch of crocodiles, traps, bats, snakes and even a boulder running down a hill! (It's a reference to the Duelist Kingdom (arc)). The 'boulder' turns out to be just a "Solid Vision".

Joey gets there just in time to not be disqualified and Mokuba scolds him: hadn't he run off, he'd shown him a shortcut for the staff!

Apdnarg Otum tells Joey he's pleased that his "disciple" has made it on time. He suddenly corrects himself, like if he was about to make a slip.

Meanwhile, Leon Wilson is going to Duel Richard Goat. His two assistant nurses hand him the Deck and wipe off the sweat. He then tells Leon that "I shall not use anesthesia for this operation". Leon is rather perplexed by his behavior, but they Duel.

(This Duel and many others are not shown onscreen for the sake of brevity of this mini-arc).

"Ancient" - Themed Deck

Professor Hawkins catches up with them. He guessed they've realized it, too. He admits that he knew the fact that Solomon was going to join the KC Grand Prix. Back when the unidentified phone call, it turned out that it was Solomon, who was bored of staying home and doing nothing.

Everyone wonders what kind of Duel it'll be: Yugi affirms that his grandpa is very strong and Mokuba questions the fact. He admits that Solomon requested to be included. Since he told Mokuba that he was the one who taught all about Duel Monsters to Yugi, so Mokuba thought it'd be alright.

The Duel begins. Solomon plays an "Ancient" - Themed Deck with many curious and Rare Cards. He has various manners of dealing with Joey's "Luck" Cards and quickly making a curious combination of Cards.

However, Yugi and Yami suspect that he's aiming at something: what could it be? The Episode ends.

Differences In Adaptations

In the dub, the skywriting planes spell out 'KC Grand Championship', whereas the skywriting planes spell out 'KC Grand Prix' with smaller letters as well.

Cut from the English version is a sequence of a pan of the contestants and where Mokuba explains the tournament rules, saying that the Duelists will be divided into two groups, A and B, for the preliminary elimination and that the winner will be the first KC Grand Prix champion.

On the screen where it displays the fixtures for the tournament, in the dub it shows KC next to the pictures of the contestants in the list whereas in the Japanese it shows their own names written in English and katakana/kanji next the pictures.

Trivia

Naruto characters cameo

Even though in both the original and dub the two Stone Giant are tokens, they are given the background of an Effect Monster.

Cameo appearances of Chōji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, and Ino Yamanaka, from Naruto, are in the stand.

Featured cards

The following cards appeared in this episode. Cards in italics debuted here.